


(my love can be) the killing kind

by novel_concept26



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Assassins & Hitmen, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Rivals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:29:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29888736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novel_concept26/pseuds/novel_concept26
Summary: Peter Quint is the easiest mark in the world, a job without complication. All Jamie has to do is pull the trigger.If only the woman from O'Mara would stop getting in her way.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 23
Kudos: 318





	(my love can be) the killing kind

It isn’t _professional_ , falling in love. And she is, absolutely, a professional. If nothing else is true, if there is no other immutable fact of living, there’s that much. That’s never been in question. Professional, from top to bottom. Get a job. Get it done.

Professionals do not fall in love. Not with marks. _Definitely_ not with the enemy.

 _Definitely_ not with the kind of enemy who turns up every time like a fucking ghost, like a fucking _curse_ , mucking up the job. Only an idiot gets involved with that. Only an idiot even _considers_ following that road. Part of professionalism is the predictability of the thing, the rational assessment of a situation. Can’t be surprised, if you keep your head on straight. Don’t make stupid mistakes.

Professionals know better than to step off the path into the dark.

Who knows what’s waiting out there?

***

The thing is, Peter Quint shouldn’t still be alive. The fact that he _is_ still alive--still drawing breath, filching jewels, charming women out of their checkbooks--is a bit of a sore spot for Jamie, frankly. Peter Quint was slated for a body bag two weeks ago.

But every time--every _fucking_ time--she shows up to finish the job, who does she find?

The associate from O’Mara, that’s who.

“How?” Wingrave asks the third time Jamie turns up empty-handed, slamming down into the seat across from his desk. “How on earth does she keep finding you?”

“Dumb fuckin’ luck,” Jamie growls, though they both know that isn’t true. O’Mara is a thorn in their side, always, sniping big targets with American aplomb, but they don’t hire duds. An O’Mara associate turning up, getting in the way, standing _right_ in Jamie’s sightline, is intentional.

Wingrave wants Peter Quint dead.

O’Mara wants Wingrave to suffer.

So, not once, not twice, but _three_ times now, Jamie has put Quint on the other end of a barrel. Three times, Jamie has lined up the shot, taken a steadying breath, prepared herself for the squeeze of trigger. 

And three times, she’s reeled back at the last minute, the visual turning in a breath from Quint’s tall, broad form to a young woman. _The_ young woman, with blonde hair and a smile that grits Jamie’s teeth each time it turns in her direction.

Even if her direction is, as it happens, on a rooftop across the street.

Somehow, the woman always seems to sense her. Somehow, the woman always knows exactly where to point that smile. 

Jamie hasn’t failed to bring a job home in seven years. Jamie, recruited out of the prison system by way of a particular back door that seems only to exist for the very wealthy and very well-connected, has never once screwed up a hit. They cross Wingrave’s desk, they find themselves the proud owner of a fresh bullet. Easy as.

Until Quint.

Until _her._

“Figure it out,” Wingrave says sharply. “Before he takes to the wind, and your job grows that much more difficult. Or would you rather I outsource?”

Jamie winces. “No. I’ve got it.”

“Jamie,” Wingrave says. She pauses in the doorway, forcing her shoulders to loosen, forcing her hands to hang carelessly at her sides. No point looking like she’s out of her depth, not here. “Maybe this one would merit a hands-on approach.”

“It’s handled,” she says, the memory of the O’Mara woman sparking beneath her skin.

***

Hands-on is not Jamie’s preferred method of dealing with targets. Hands-on is for femme fatales and muscleheads, for poison aficionados and rope fiends. Jamie prefers distance. Jamie prefers the security of a silencer, a long-distance shot taken with perfect precision. Jamie prefers, above all, not to be _seen_. 

But the woman has seen her. Three times now, the woman has seen her. What else is there to do?

***

Quint is making his usual rounds, heedless of the fact that he might have a price on his head. Quint is, luckily, still gloriously ignorant to the whole endeavor, cheerfully going about his life of grift and sleight of hand. He’s an idiot to think his most recent big score won’t come back on him tenfold, but that isn’t Jamie’s problem.

Jamie’s problem is the blonde. 

Jamie’s problem is, just now, tailing Quint at a respectable distance. She doesn’t move like a killer, Jamie notes--she moves, instead, like she’s always one bad twist of ankle away from tripping into traffic. There’s a lack of grace about her long strides that can only be fabricated, a tension in her back that no one in their right mind would fear. She looks like a schoolteacher, not an assassin.

It’s impressive work. If Jamie hadn’t been at this so long, she might miss the truth beneath the woman’s careful facade: the way her eyes always cut sharply around the room, though her head remains still; the way her fist, coiled at her side, conceals something up one sleeve; the way she smiles. 

Always the way she smiles. Like she can see it all so clearly.

The woman is tailing Quint, and Jamie is tailing the woman--has been for most of the afternoon. It’s a patient task, as so much of the job always is. Following a mark, setting down the perimeters in which they will eventually find themselves caged, is not quick work. It takes days, sometimes, to understand a person. Weeks, even.

Is she really going to spend weeks on this woman?

If she has to.

Of course, every minute that ticks by is a little worse for Jamie’s record. Every day that passes with Peter Quint still operating at full--which is to say, _living_ \--strength makes her look just fucking terrible.

This woman is ruining her goddamn reputation, is what she’s doing.

Still. Patience. Jamie follows her at a casual distance, watching the way the woman interacts with strangers. Helping little old ladies cross the street. Bending to pet dogs. Offering a coin to a passing child, gesturing to an ice cream vendor. Jamie frowns.

She’s made a career of being invisible. Of keeping quiet, keeping her head down, working hard to look as though she isn’t working at all.

This woman seems to be the exact opposite. Well-mannered. Kind, even. Her eye contact is protracted, her smile sunny. The most dangerous kind of threat, hiding in plain--almost clumsy--sight.

“Who,” Jamie mutters, “are you?”

***

She follows the woman through markets and parks, into London and back out of the city again. Occasionally, she worries she might lose her--when the woman steers toward the Underground, or into a cab--but the woman seems always to turn back up. So long as Jamie keeps close to Peter Quint, the O’Mara associate is within range.

Within range, and utterly unaware of her presence. 

Christ, the woman isn’t even _thinking_ about being followed. Every so often, her gaze strays toward the nearest rooftop, her lips curving, but that’s it. She has no sense of Jamie moving along behind her at a stroll, nothing about her standing out from the crowd of business enthusiasts and university students. She’s good, obviously, but Jamie is so clearly better that it sets her teeth on edge to think _this_ is the woman who has fucked up such a straightforward job.

 _This_ woman, who Jamie has been following all goddamn day, and not a single--

She blinks. Peter Quint is still within range, his face an arrogant mask of amusement as he discusses top-shelf liquor with a salesman. The woman, however, has completely vanished. 

She glances over her shoulder, turning slowly on her heel, frowning. How? One minute, she’d been there--lilac jumper, short black skirt, looking too sweet to be left on her own in public--and the next...

“You’re really going to keep this up, huh?”

She does not jump. Jamie has long tamped down such idiotic knee-jerk reactions as _jumping_ in surprise. Her hand, instinctively, moves beneath the long line of her coat to the butt of a pistol, but that’s to be expected when facing down a fucking American assassin.

“Hi,” the woman says, like this is a perfectly reasonable way to greet your personal tail.

Jamie says nothing. The woman sticks out a hand.

“Dani.” 

“Seriously?” Jamie blurts. “You’re--I mean, that’s not your name, right?”

“Might be,” the woman says, almost cheerfully. “You don’t know.”

Jamie opens her mouth to argue, furrows her brow, closes it again. The woman does have her there. If you’re going to play it this way, feet on the ground, dancing in the thick of it, maybe you _do_ greet the enemy with a name on your lips. Throw them off balance.

She certainly feels thrown.

“You?” Dani asks. Jamie snorts.

“You don’t honestly think I’m going to answer that.”

“No,” Dani says pleasantly. “Suppose not. You’re not usually down here. Did you give up?”

“Give-- _no_ , I didn’t _give up_.” This is unbelievable. This is fucking unbelievable. This woman, this mad American woman, is so--

“Look, I don’t know what he did,” Dani says, sighing. “And, if I can be straight with you, I don’t care. My boss wants him alive.”

“Your boss,” Jamie says through gritted teeth, “is not the kind of person who _keeps_ people _alive_.”

“We’re branching out.” Dani gives her a slow once-over, her smile almost genuine. “Wow. Really fit the part, don’t you?”

Jamie glances down. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way she’s dressed--crisp white shirt, black tie, long black jacket. Boots designed for running and stomping in equal measure. She’s fine. This is fine.

“Company uniform,” she says wryly. Dani looks impressed.

“Really?”

“ _No._ ” Who the fuck _is_ this woman? “So, you’re not here to kill Quint. You’re here to play bodyguard.”

Dani shrugs again. “Guess so. Makes it interesting, doesn’t it?”

“Makes _what_ \--”

Dani steps closer, a display of dominance so sudden and unexpected, Jamie nearly recoils. Nearly. “It’ll all go much easier,” she says in a voice which is soft, but not without steel, “if you let Wingrave know this one is off-limits. Find another job. I’m sure you’re very good.”

Her hand, Jamie realizes, is sliding into the length of her coat. The same hand she’d fixed on before, revealing that item up her sleeve--the cool point of a very small, very sharp knife now pressed to her ribs. 

“Very good,” Dani repeats, close enough for Jamie to count the shades of blue in her eyes. “I’d really hate to have to ruin your nice shirt.”

***

“Bodyguard?” Wingrave scowls. “Quint can’t afford a goddamned _bodyguard_.”

“He has no idea,” Jamie says, certain of that much. “O’Mara wants him alive.”

“O’Mara wants to see us belly-up,” Wingrave snaps. “Best way to manage it on short-notice is to ruin our prospects. Quint lives, our reputation takes the bullet for him. I thought you said you’d _handle_ it.”

“I will.” The memory of that knife, the tiny hole it had left in her shirt, still rankles even after a full night of sleep. The way the woman had smiled at her, like she was simply asking Jamie for directions to the nearest cafe, rankles more.

“See to it. He’s got a flight to America next week. I want him on a slab long before he reaches the airport. And Jamie?”

She scowls. “Yeah?”

“Leave the woman. The last thing we need is a cross-continental war with the O’Mara Associates.” Wingrave closes his eyes, looking almost exhausted. “Fucking Americans.”

***

Long-distance won’t do; the woman is clearly fast. And cleverer than she looks. 

Jamie will just have to be faster.

Quint is taking his meal at an outdoor cafe this morning, like an idiot. On a better day, Jamie would have put a bullet between his eyes before he’d finished his espresso, and been on to greener pastures before the police could arrive. On a better day, she might get to spend her afternoon gardening.

Today, she’s sitting three tables away, a black cap pulled low over her curls, her hand toying with a tiny vial of poison. 

Jamie, in truth, hates poison. It’s a coward’s weapon, a last-ditch approach to a job that should have been simple. That she’s been reduced to _this_ \--to standing abruptly as the server passes, stumbling into him, tipping the contents of the vial into a mug primed for Quint’s table even as she makes loud apologies to the young man--is an embarrassment. 

Whatever gets the job done, she thinks reluctantly, dropping back into place. Give it ten minutes, and Quint will be frothing at the mouth. A misery for her own track record, but good enough for Wingrave and his backers. 

The server, collecting himself, settles back upon his preordained path--and, just as quickly, finds himself on the ground. A flash of blonde hair has crashed into him, arms full of paper bags, her shopping flying everywhere. 

Jamie groans. 

“That,” she says in a low tone, “was pathetic.”

Dani, having retrieved her shopping--or _someone’s_ shopping, anyway; Jamie suspects she just plucked this out of some old bat’s cart and was on her merry before the woman could notice--settles beside her at the table. Like she belongs here. Like she was _invited._

“Worked, didn’t it?” She smiles, looking Jamie politely over. “See, this is better. Much less _hitman with a cause._ Much more...”

“More _what_?” Jamie mutters. Not that she’d taken this woman’s opinion into account getting dressed this morning. Not that she’d intentionally left the monochrome palette behind in favor of a navy t-shirt and jeans. It’s about _blending_ , is all. Nothing to do with this woman and her stupid supply of hidden knives.

“Human,” Dani says after a beat. “Much more human. You’re younger than I thought.”

“You thought I was _old_?”

“Angry, maybe.” Dani reaches across the table, taps her once on the back of the hand. The same hand, Jamie realizes, that had tipped the poison. “You’re sneaky. Really, it’s very impressive. But maybe next time don’t sit right by the entrance. Makes it really obvious you’re about to mess with the food.”

“Obvious to--”

“Anyway, don’t feel bad. I’m sure you’re doing your best.” Dani stands, steps around the table, lays a hand on Jamie’s shoulder for balance as she bends to murmur in her ear. “Tell your boss we can move past this just as soon as he lets Quint board that plane.”

Jamie reaches up, catching her by the wrist. “Why are you doing this?”

Something flashes in blue eyes, something a little like annoyance. Or maybe, Jamie thinks, misery. 

“Sometimes,” Dani says, her voice faux-pleasant once more, “we just don’t have another choice.”

***

No long-range rifle, no poison. This is not a good day.

Tomorrow, she decides. Peter Quint dies tomorrow.

***

Three days later, Peter Quint is still fucking _alive._

Three days later, he has survived a bomb in his car (defused before Jamie could even _see_ Dani do it), a deft blade aimed at his back (the blow surreptiously caught by Dani, who pulled her close enough to kiss and _laughed_ while she did it), and a shove into the canal. 

This last, she hadn’t expected to kill him. It was just satisfying to watch him flounder and curse, his expensive shirt soaked with frigid water as ducks paddled by.

“Didn’t think he could swim?” Dani asks, arms folded across her chest. She’s leaning against a park bench, grinning. Jamie sort of hates how much she’s coming to enjoy that grin. 

“Well, I _was_ going to drop a piano on him, but I figured you’d find a way to teleport him out of the bloody way.”

“Ooh,” Dani says delightedly, “I wish you’d tried. That would have been imaginative.”

Jamie sighs, pressing back against the bench. Her shoulder bumps Dani’s, her irritation giving way to a temporary wave of exhaustion. “Look, he’s a prick. Can you please just let me shoot him and be done with it?”

“No, sorry.” Dani almost looks it, too. She has this way of looking at Jamie when she speaks, like she _means_ every fucking word. Shame she plays for the other side, with acting chops like that.

“You really are going to keep getting in my way.” 

“I really am,” Dani agrees. She bumps back against Jamie’s arm, as though this is some kind of game. As though they should be enjoying the ride. “Look, I know it isn’t ideal--”

“Do you know,” Jamie interrupts, “how many times I’ve had to default on a job?”

Dani gestures for her to go on. She sighs.

“Never. Not once. That you’re going to make _Peter fucking Quint_ my first and only failure is truly offensive.”

“I’m sorry,” Dani repeats, and _really_ sounds like it. Jamie frowns, searching her eyes for sign of teasing. She finds nothing at all. 

“I don’t understand. What’s he done to merit this kind of protection?”

“Paid the right people.” Dani doesn’t sound particularly interested. She’s looking at Jamie like this is the last conversation she wants to be having. “I don’t know more than that. They don’t tell me what I don’t need to know.”

“They,” Jamie says flatly. “Your bosses.”

“My--” Dani stops dead, shakes her head. “Look, it doesn’t matter. Let Quint go. This doesn’t have to keep...”

“I don’t,” Jamie says quietly, “fail. Not at this. Not ever.”

Dani looks at her, a long gaze so full of warmth, she almost looks away. Almost. 

“All right,” she says at last, raising a hand to brush Jamie’s cheek. “Your call.”

***

She doesn’t like parties. Really doesn’t like parties like this one, thrown for socialites and fools, all of whom look at her like they can see past the expensive cut of her suit to the gutter rat beneath. _Dress yourself up_ , they seem to say, _make yourself look as polished as you like. Won’t matter. You’re still Louise Taylor’s kid, in the end. Nothing but foster homes and prison time in your future._

And bullets. Lots of bullets. So far, she’s never been on the wrong end of one, and that’s just fucking fine by her. What do these people know?

“He’ll be drunk,” Wingrave said, slapping the garment bag and invitation onto the desk. “He’ll be sloppy. End this.”

At least, Jamie thinks, sipping a martini she does not in the least want, he supplied a decent outfit. The burgundy of the jacket, the black silk of the shirt, the shine of the shoes make her feel capable. Like Wingrave’s best. Like someone whose gun--silver and sleek, tucked in a hidden holster--has never once failed to get the job done.

_I don’t fail. Not at this. Not ever._

Quint is making nice with a beautiful young woman across the room, his hand stroking down her arm with reckless interest. Too busy to wander off on his own just yet--but he will. Sooner or later, he’ll set off for the bathroom or in search of a quiet place to smoke. She’ll have all the time she needs to finish this.

“I don’t suppose you dance.”

She closes her eyes, smiling a little. Dani is no longer a surprise, it’s true. Not a surprise at all. 

A vision, maybe, in a sleek black dress tailored exclusively to turn heads. Jamie utters a low whistle. 

“Looking to scandalize the proverbial village, are we?”

“Can you blame me?” Dani gestures to the crowd. Her hand glitters with jewels, diamonds at her wrist and throat to match. Jamie will never feel as though she belongs to a circle like this; Dani looks as though she was made for it. 

“Blame you? For matching wits with London’s elite?” Jamie makes a show of shrugging, even as Dani takes her hand, divesting her of the unwanted drink with little effort. “Yes, actually. These people are--”

“Not the point,” Dani says shrewdly, guiding Jamie’s hand to her hip. She takes the other in a firm grip, slides her free hand around Jamie’s neck. 

“What is the point?”

“This,” Dani says, pulling Jamie hard against her body. Jamie, despite herself, smiles. 

“Dancing?”

“Distraction,” Dani says, and Jamie doesn’t need her to say it--knew from the minute Dani took her hand, that was the idea. It’s a distraction she doesn’t need, maybe can’t even _handle_ , but something about the way Dani is looking her in the eye, her fingers toying absently with Jamie’s hair, is hard to resist. 

“If I told you I didn’t come for Quint tonight,” she says. Dani casts her head back, laughing so sincerely, she can’t help but tighten her grip. Her palm slides to the small of Dani’s back, pressing her closer as they revolve around the dance floor. 

“You wouldn’t lie to me,” Dani says. “Not after we’ve set such a beautiful relationship in motion.”

“You’re right,” Jamie agrees. “If only because you’re not stupid enough to believe me. No point.”

“What was the plan tonight?” Dani is warm under her hands, her fingers curled around Jamie’s as though without thought. Her perfume is entirely too heady, her makeup too perfect for the evening festivities as Jamie had originally entertained. 

“Following him to the bathroom, probably. Put a bullet into his skull while he’s pissing.”

“Uncharitable,” Dani says. Her hand is buried in Jamie’s hair now, her nails scratching lightly along the curve of her scalp. Jamie resists the urge to close her eyes, bend her head, inhale more of that perfume. “Anyway, I don’t think you’re going to get the chance.”

Jamie glances over her shoulder as Dani turns them in place, giving her a perfect sightline. The pretty object of Quint’s advances has him by the sleeve, is leaning up to whisper into his ear.

“Great.”

“Unless,” Dani says, “you don’t mind adding to your body count. But I’ve always heard that’s unprofessional. Taking down innocents in the crossfire.”

“Not part of the job,” Jamie says, though that isn’t always true. Some of Wingrave’s best don’t care at all about innocents, about civilians, about morality. Some do what they do for the love of the game. The idea has never sat particularly well with Jamie. 

Dani, gazing into her eyes, seems almost to read her mind. “Some people don’t care about that. Some people just like it.”

“Do you?” She doesn’t really want to know. Doesn’t really want this beautiful woman who has been haunting her every move for weeks to look her in the eye and say, _It’s just a job. Nothing really matters, anyway._

“No,” Dani says softly. “No, I really don’t.”

Her hand is pressing against the back of Jamie’s head, her body flush against Jamie’s in a way that has very little to do with following the music. They’re the same height, Jamie registers, with no need at all to rise up or bend down, not with Dani’s lips pressing lightly to her own. 

A flash grenade seems to go off in her head, her hand tightening in Dani’s as the kiss breaks, as Dani looks at her with clear question in her eyes--and then she’s surging back in, kissing Jamie harder, deepening with a practiced stroke of her tongue. Jamie groans, some small part of her trying to imagine explaining to Wingrave how she let Quint slip out _again_ , let him go because she was too high on this woman’s perfume, too high on the moan Dani sinks into her mouth, too high on the way Dani’s whole body seems to be on fire under her roaming hands--

Another flash grenade. Then a scream. 

Jamie wrenches away, her head spinning. That one, she realizes too late, had been real. That one had been an actual _grenade_. 

“You?” she asks, dumbfounded. How stupid. How stupid to play into this when Dani had just _told her_ \--literally, had just gotten done telling her--that this was a distraction. A ploy. A--

But Dani’s face is draining of color, her eyes frantic. “No. Not me. Jamie, I don’t--”

 _I never told her my name_ , Jamie thinks, but there’s no time for more. No time to get into it, not with the crowd of wealthy idiots screaming, rushing for the exits. Her hand closes tighter around Dani’s, the other slipping into her jacket and coming up with the gun. 

“With me, or not?” she asks, and Dani squeezes her hand hard. 

This hasto do with Quint, she thinks. What are the odds there are _two_ idiots with bounties on their head at the self-same gala? What direction, then, did he go with that woman--that woman--

“Fuck,” she growls. Dani, close on her heels despite the knife-sharp edge of her stilettos, frowns. 

“What?”

“The woman. Stupid. So fucking stupid, I didn’t--” _Didn’t see it. Didn’t think._ Had been so fucking distracted by the job, by the need to get it done _right_ , that she hadn’t _recognized_ the obvious.

_He’ll be drunk. He’ll be sloppy._

End this, Wingrave had said, and Jamie hadn’t heard that measured way he _didn’t_ add the rest: _or else someone else will._ And can she really blame him? She’s been given more than enough time to take out the world’s easiest target. Of _course_ he’d have a back-up plan. Of _course._

“The woman,” she repeats. “Wingrave’s.”

Dani, pale, shaken, looks bewildered. “But you’re--”

“Keeping you busy,” Jamie finishes. “I didn’t even realize. Didn’t even _think_ , _fuck_.”

She’s sprinting, her head spinning, the gun held at her side. Every so often, one of the idiot socialites catches sight of its gleam, uttering another scream. She ignores them all. They aren’t the _point_. 

The point--the mark--the reason for all the chaos--is on the floor just outside the restrooms. The man formerly known as Peter Quint, whose final act had been an expression of surprise--as if he’d gone in for a kiss and come up with a bullet. 

“Miserable fuck,” Jamie mutters, kicking his shoulder lightly. “She didn’t even try to hide it.”

This is the thing about hands-on types. They are, sometimes, very subtle--but more often than not, they have something to prove. A woman willing to shoot Quint in full view of anyone who needed the restroom? She’s got style, Jamie has to admit, and more than likely Quint had done something to earn ire as well as professional courtesy. Even so--

“Not how I’d have done it,” she says. “Right. Time to go, I think--”

“Jamie, _move_ ,” Dani snaps, jerking her by the jacket against the wall. Not a second later, the column behind them explodes. 

Jamie, breath hitching in her chest as adrenaline kicks into high gear, raises her own gun. There--a man, dressed as a waiter in black and white, leveling an automatic rifle. 

_Fuck_. Not one of Wingrave’s. The woman is long gone, Quint’s death already making its rounds--someone listening when she’d called it in, maybe, or...

Someone was willing to pay how much, to keep him alive? How much, to take the O’Mara team and turn them into glorified bodyguards?

“Go,” she says, pulling Dani close and shifting to fire over her shoulder. “ _Go_.”

She’s going to have _such_ a conversation with Wingrave. _Such_ a long, ugly fucking conversation with that unimaginable fucking _twat_ \--

She’s grateful Dani can sprint in heels, grateful the majority of panicking socialites are trying to shove their way through the same few doors, grateful this particular hall leads not back to the ballroom, but into the server’s halls. One hand on Dani’s waist, the other holding the gun steady, she darts a quick glance backward just in time to see three men in paramilitary gear round the corner.

“Don’t suppose you really can teleport?” she pants, shoving Dani through the first doorway they find. Dani makes a thin noise--panic or amusement, she can’t be sure--and Jamie jerks the door shut behind them.

A closet. She found them a fucking closet. _Jesus Christ, I’m going to die at a fucking gala because no one would let me kill_ Peter fucking Quint. 

Dani is breathing heavily against the back of her neck, her hands shaking as she grips Jamie’s jacket. Jamie leans back against her, away from the door, hoping against hope--

Footsteps, moving slowly. The heavy tread of thick-soled boots coming nearer...nearer...fading.

Jamie breathes out slowly through her nose, willing her body out of flight mode and into something resembling focus. Not that there’s much focus to be found, between the size of those guns and the press of Dani against her back. Not that there’s much focus to be found, with how _angry_ she is that Wingrave would have the _audacity_ to use her as _bait._

“ _Bait_ ,” she hisses. “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him.”

“Can it wait?” Dani whispers sharply. She, too, seems to be listening. “Think they’re gone.”

Jamie nods. “Count of three?”

“One,” Dani says grimly.

“Two.”

She twists the knob, shoves hard, the pair of them already sprinting back the way they’d come. Back, she registers, toward Quint’s body is maybe not the _best_ idea--but it’s a damn sight wiser than running into three trained men with guns much bigger than her own. 

After all, who goes back to the scene of the crime?

“Jamie,” Dani says, and they are _absolutely_ going to have a conversation about that, about how she knows Jamie’s name, about how she never _said_ anything-- 

But it can wait. It can wait until they’re not facing down a beautiful young woman in a glittering gown, leveling a revolver at her face. 

“Taylor,” Peter Quint’s murderer says pleasantly. “Nice to meet you at last.”

***

“It’s nothing personal,” the woman says, which would be a lot easier to believe if not for the gun. “Wingrave was just concerned about the timetable. And about this.”

She gestures to Dani, who is--Jamie is somewhat baffled to note--standing not behind Jamie, but directly at her side. Even, she registers, a half step closer to the stranger. She reaches out, gently taking Dani by the wrist with her free hand. 

“No heroics,” she murmurs. Dani grits her teeth.

“Hero?” The assassin laughs. “Darling, which of us are heroes? Not Quint, surely. And certainly not _you_. How’s your tally looking, seven years in? High, I’d wager.”

“I don’t recognize you,” Jamie says. The woman--pale, black-haired, high-cheekboned--grins. 

“No, well, you wouldn’t. I’m not one of Wingrave’s pets.”

“Outsource,” Dani says. “Must be. We’ve got files on every one of--”

 _Files. Obviously._ Stupid, not to see it. Distracted. Too interested in this silly little game to get the job done properly, and now--

“Not going to shoot me,” Jamie says. “Wingrave would be furious. Lost investment.”

“What’s an investment,” the assassin says, almost politely, “that can’t be managed? You had _weeks_ to do the job, Taylor. And you failed because, why? _Her_?”

The gun never wavers. The woman looks so _cheerful_ , blue eyes and full lips and haughty amusement. 

“You started something,” Jamie says cautiously. “Taking Quint out. You started...”

“I _finished_ something,” the woman sneers. “Which you, dear, could have done quite easily. If you hadn’t been so busy playing with the opposition.”

The math won’t work, Jamie thinks. No matter how fast she is, no matter how quickly she brings her arm up and squeezes the trigger, even if she’s the luckiest she’s ever been in her life, there are no odds in her favor this woman won’t fire first. No odds in her favor at all. 

“Boring,” the woman says. “Quint was easy prey. Float a pretty face, he’d just...walk into the path. And still, you couldn’t manage it.”

“But you did,” Jamie says. “Not clean. Not subtle.”

“Just done.” The woman flashes her teeth. “That’s all I ever promise. I get it done. Which is why I’m still standing here.”

“We all think that,” Jamie snaps. “We all think we’re the best in the game.”

“Not what I meant,” the woman says pleasantly, and turns her aim on Dani. 

Jamie, without thinking, moves.

***

“That was stupid,” Dani wheezes; trying to run at full speed and hold Jamie up at the same time is clearly taking a toll. “You _know_ how stupid that was.”

“Some might say brave.” Jamie winces. 

“Some might say _reckless_.” 

“Some might say it was only a fucking graze, and I’m _fine._ ” If _fine_ means _my boss explicitly outsourced the world’s easiest mark, and his loose canon associate just tried to shoot my rival-slash-something more_ , then, yes. She’s perfectly fine. Perfectly fine with a grazed upper arm, a room that won’t stop spinning, so much adrenaline flooding her body she’s gone all the way past Superhero and straight back to Basically Useless.

Perfectly fuckin’ fine.

The odds hadn’t been in her favor to shoot, sure, but Dani had been so close. Too close not to whirl on her heel, catch Dani by the shoulders, jerk her aside. And maybe it was stupid--maybe the assassin could just as easily have shot her in the back.

Outsourced. Jamie somehow doesn’t think Wingrave would choose an idiot. Jamie somehow doesn’t think it was an accident at all, that the woman only fired late.

“Just a little further.” Dani has her good arm looped over her shoulders, one hand gripping Jamie around the middle. The other is holding Jamie’s gun. Jamie isn’t entirely clear on how or when that happened.

Jamie isn’t entirely clear on much just now, except for the vague desire to throw up. Not the most professional thing in the world, but at the moment, she finds herself quite unable to care.

At least there are no more men, no more enormous black guns, no more potentially-deranged pale women with a distinct desire to see Dani dead. 

Or Jamie. She’s really not clear on which, either, which is its own kind of problem. As in: was this a _choice_ , a bored hitwoman thirsting for more blood? Or was it a job--a professional lining up another shot? Take out O’Mara’s little distraction. Take out Wingrave’s little failure. Both? Neither? Impossible to say.

“We’re going to need to lie low,” she says. “For a while, maybe.”

“Fine,” Dani says. “Just live long enough for me to get you home.”

The word bounces around Jamie’s head on repeat-- _home, home, home_ \--for so long, she’s surprised when Dani pulls her into a completely unfamiliar building. Not her own flat. Not home at all.

Not _her_ home.

“You brought me to your place?” She’s swaying, her good shoulder pressed to the wall; Dani had to let go to dig a key out of her dress. Jamie’s pretty sure the garment lacks pockets, and even more sure this is of interest, even with blood seeping steadily through her fine suit. 

“Well, Jamie, I did think about a Caribbean getaway, but gosh, on such short notice?”

 _Snappy_ , Jamie thinks, her vision beginning to gray. It’s nice, in a way, watching all the pretense fall away from Dani in a single motion. The woman who is guiding her through the door now, swearing under her breath, is absolutely one Jamie wants to kiss again.

 _Again._ So much can happen in a single night. So much with the--

“Enemy of my enemy,” Jamie says absently. “Makes you my friend, doesn’t it?”

“Makes me something.” Dani is guiding her down to the edge of a bathtub, her hands steady on Jamie’s shoulders. “If I let go, you promise not to fall backward?”

“Nope,” Jamie says. The bathroom is swimming around her. Maybe slightly more than a graze, then. “Keep talking, I’ll try to stay conscious.”

Dani hesitates, staring at her like she isn’t entirely sure that’s good enough--then, slowly, she nods. “Right. Who was that woman?”

“No idea.”

“Wingrave doesn’t run his outsource talent by his best?”

“Wingrave doesn’t run his _dinner arrangements_ by his best,” Jamie snorts. “Especially now. Couldn’t even kill that rat Quint.” She shuts her eyes, willing the world to stand still, breathing heavily through her nose until the urge to vomit into the tub passes. “Fuck. Been a long time since I was shot.”

“It does not look like fun.” Dani is pulling bandages and scissors, thread and disinfectant from the cabinet, arranging them all in a neat line. She reaches for Jamie’s jacket, pauses briefly. “May I?”

“As you fuckin’ wish,” Jamie mutters, gripping the tub harder. Dani pushes the jacket gently back, down her arm, and though she’s being infinitely more tender than anyone Jamie’s been near in years, her hand grazing the wound nearly knocks Jamie backward. “ _Fuck._ Just. Cut me out of the shirt, okay?”

“You’re sure? Think it’s Italian.”

Jamie darts a sharp glance up. Dani is smiling, though her eyes are worried. 

“I’ll bill Wingrave, just as soon as I figure out if he tried to have me fucking killed tonight.” She sucks in a breath, holds it as Dani unbuttons the shirt carefully and eases the sleeve off her good arm. The bad, she comes at with scissors, her hands warm against Jamie’s skin. “This is not how I imagined this going.”

Dani pauses, shreds of black silk pooled in her hands. “You imagined this?”

“Not getting _shot_ ,” Jamie amends. “The--rest of it. Other part. Y’know.”

She’s delirious. Must be. It’s the only explanation for the out of control nature of her mouth, veering just a little too close to telling Dani she’s thought of--that she wants--

Dani is kneeling before her on the tile, her dress rumpled, her hair falling out of its fancy arrangement. There is blood on one hand, Jamie realizes. 

“Be a bad time,” she says shakily, though her body is leaning forward into Dani’s, “to kiss you again, wouldn’t it?”

Dani presses her forehead against her, drawing her nose lightly against Jamie’s in a gentle motion. She is, unbelievably, smiling. 

“Later,” she says, and her voice is so wonderfully kind, Jamie almost decides _to hell with the arm._ To hell with all of it, so long as she gets a night here. 

“Talk,” she rasps, shutting her eyes to keep from watching Dani’s mouth. “Talk to me, please.”

Dani, setting to work with deft, newly sanitized hands, does. She’s done this before, Jamie registers--maybe more than a few times. There is no sign at all of the calculated clumsiness she’d employed out on the street, no sign of shaking fingers or incoming panic attack. Dani, cleaning the wound with precise, gentle motions, inspecting the torn skin, pronouncing her in need of a handful of stitches, is a professional. 

Her voice is slightly less than level, as she speaks. Jamie doesn’t hold that against her.

“Peter Quint’s fiancée,” she says as she works, frowning apologetically whenever Jamie winces, “is Rebecca Jessel. A lawyer, big name, connected--military, apparently, or to a private contractor. Doesn’t come from money, but she’s figured the system out along the way. If you ask me, I think she’s better off without him--pretty sure he only wanted her for her status to begin with.”

“But they didn’t ask you,” Jamie guesses. If she just keeps breathing, if she just keeps focusing on the soft stroke of Dani’s fingers across her skin, she can forget the needle punching in and out, in and out, black thread drawing in neat arcs along her upper arm. 

“They did not. Eddie never does.” Dani closes her eyes for a moment as if steeling herself. “It’s his family’s company. We--were engaged. For a time.”

“How long?” Somehow, this information doesn’t feel much better than the needle. 

“Doesn’t matter. I broke things off last year. He wanted to drop me completely--said it was _family only_ , but his mother wouldn’t hear of it. Just about raised me, wasn’t going to dump me now. Edmund thinks O’Mara belongs to him and his brothers, but Judy has always run the show.” There’s a fond glint in Dani’s eye, though her lips form a thin line. “Protecting Peter on Jessel’s dime was my...you could say punishment, I guess.”

“For breaking up with him?” Jamie hisses through her teeth, pain radiating down her arm. “Fuck. Ow.”

“Yeah. For...that.” Dani leans back, assessing her work, applying a bandage for good measure. “There you go. Good as new.”

“C’ept for the being shot,” Jamie says dryly. She’s suddenly aware of herself: sitting nearly naked from the waist up, pale and drawn and shivering. It’s not a good look. 

None of this is good. She’s hiding out from her own people, hiding out with one of _O’Mara’s_. Edmund or Judy, it doesn’t really matter--if they find her here, if they find her with one of their own, she’s going to wish for another of Wingrave’s outsource choices.

Dani washes her hands again, dries them quickly, touches Jamie’s shoulder with light fingers as though her hand belongs to someone who hasn’t just spent endless minutes sewing Jamie back together. “Can you stand?”

Jamie almost nods before deciding to test it out first. The world spins as she pushes upright, her hand flailing for purchase and landing in Dani’s. She closes her eyes, gives it a minute, is gratified to find the bathroom still more or less right side up when she looks again.

“This the part where you call me a cab?”

“This is the part,” Dani says quietly, “where you decide how you want to play this.”

She’s standing so close, the space between the tub and sink too small for two people. She’s standing there in her scandalous dress, her hand resting reassuringly on Jamie’s forearm, looking at Jamie like there are questions she can’t get through another night without answering. 

“I should go,” Jamie says. “I should--”

But go _where_? Even if Wingrave _didn’t_ want her corpse joining Quint’s, who cares? That woman might well be looking for her anyway, a sort of thrilling sport. Or the O’Mara team will, turned in a the span of a single bullet from protection to retribution. How many of those military men saw her standing over Quint’s body? How many saw _Dani_?

“You’re putting it together,” Dani says softly. “How bad this looks.”

“Any of them,” Jamie says. “Any of them could be outside right now, looking for either of us.”

Dani’s hands are the only solid thing in the room, Jamie’s whole life splintering before her eyes. She’d _liked_ her life, goddamn it. It had been simple, straightforward. She’d been _good_ at the job, good at handling Wingrave’s targets, good at keeping her head down and her shots clean. 

“You can go,” Dani says in that same soft voice, “if you want. I won’t stop you. But Jamie--earlier, when I kissed you, I wasn’t--that wasn’t part of the--”

Jamie can’t stop herself. Another night, maybe, she might have--a night with a clear head, no blood loss, no bad choices ahead of her. Another night, she might have turned and strode right out of this apartment and into whatever comes next.

Now, with Dani looking at her that way--her jaw set, her eyes serious, her lipstick still smudged from a kiss on a dance floor--she can’t think of anything else but to bend her head and press her mouth to Dani’s parted lips again. 

Dani, whose hands skirt around the wound, sliding instead up her chest. Dani, one arm winding around her neck, her voice drifting across Jamie’s lips in a hopeful, almost wounded arc. Dani, letting herself propel backwards against the sink, Jamie gripping her dress in desperate hands. 

Her arm is screaming. Her head is pounding. There is blood in the bathtub, her clothing is in tatters on the floor, and all she can think about is the way Dani feels, pinned against the counter. All she can think is, _There’s no assurance. No certainty that we’ll walk out of here tomorrow._

“Better,” she says, tilting her head away for breath, burying her face against Dani’s throat. Dani’s pulse is rabbit-quick under her lips, Dani’s hands firm on her hips as she pushes the dress up nearly to Dani’s waist. “This feels better.”

“You got shot in the arm,” Dani reminds her in a high, trembling voice. 

“Yeah, my _left_ arm.”

“Jamie.”

Jamie is pretty sure she could ride the adrenaline at least to her knees, at least for a while, ruining Dani’s dress and her own composure in equal measure. She’s pretty sure she could, that it would be worth it to have Dani bucking under her mouth, riding out the high of another idiotic _I want_ -shaped choice. Might pass out after, but--

“Come to bed,” Dani says against her ear, and though her voice beckons Jamie toward some unwise edge, her next words are carefully phrased. “To _sleep_ , Jamie. If you’re still here tomorrow...if you’re still...”

“And if they find us?” Her body is exhausted, though there is a certain thrill in the way Dani is moving against her. _Just a little longer, like this. Just a little more._

“They won't.” Dani pulls at her until Jamie meets her eyes, leaning in to kiss her softly. “They won’t. Eddie doesn’t know about this place. It’s mine.”

“Nothing,” Jamie says wearily, “is ours. Not in this line of work.”

“This is,” Dani says, so fiercely, Jamie believes her. Can’t help it. There’s something about this woman she just can’t _not_ believe in. “For now, at least. You need rest, and I need to think, and neither of us is going to get that with...with you doing...”

Jamie realizes her hips are rocking gently, that Dani is pressing a smooth thigh up to meet her, that they’re both breathing harder than is explicitly directed for people who need to _rest._

“One night,” she says. “One night, and then we figure it out. Whatever comes next. Right?”

Dani nods. Presses a hand gently against her breastbone, pushes until Jamie takes a step back to release her. 

“Come to bed,” she repeats. “The rest, we can figure out together. If you--if you want.”

Jamie _should_ say no. In a way, this is all Dani’s fault--or her own, for playing the game, for being so intrigued by this woman’s interruptions she couldn’t get the job done. In a way, this is on both of them for forgetting professionalism in the name of whatever warm gravity is stretched between them. 

She follows Dani to the bedroom, collapsing onto the mattress without further provocation. Dani gives her a slow, shy smile. 

“Help me out of this thing?”

Jamie gestures for her to come closer, watching Dani back obediently between her bent knees. Her hand on the zipper is shaking almost too hard to command, though she thinks that has less to do with the evening’s adventures and more with the shallow way Dani is breathing in the dark. 

She can’t quite resist sliding her good arm around Dani’s middle, coaxing her down into her lap. Can’t quite resist drifting long, slow kisses across her exposed back, licking gently at the jut of shoulder blade, her palm flat across Dani’s stomach. 

“Shot,” Dani reminds her in a low voice. “You were _shot_.”

“Grazed,” Jamie says against her skin. Dani laughs. 

“Any wound that I have to stitch shut again means you hold off on sex for twenty-four hours. House rule.”

“Twelve hours,” Jamie suggests, nuzzling against her back. Dani arches, wriggles, pulls gently free to remove the dress properly. It is not as good, Jamie thinks, as being allowed to help--but it’s not _bad_ , by any stretch, either. 

Better yet, when Dani presses her backward into the sheets, curling up against her back. She’s careful, pulling the blankets over them both, to avoid the bullet wound. Thoughtful, for a woman who has just blown up Jamie’s whole very reasonable life. 

“Hey,” she says, listening to Dani breathe into the shadows. “What’s your name? Your real name. Got mine out of a file, but I never--”

“Dani,” Dani replies. “It’s really Dani.”

Her real name, straight away. Her real name, offered like an olive branch before this even really began. Jamie can’t explain it, can’t put it into clear words with her head spinning this way--but that feels important. That feels like such a reason to _stay._

They’re quiet for a while, Jamie beginning to drift without meaning to. Her arm aches, her heart thudding painfully every time Dani’s skin shifts against her own. There’s a heat in her belly, a terror under her skin, a complete inability to separate one from the other. Wanting Dani. Fearing the morning sun. There’s simply no way to quiet either, not even under the fatigue rushing in to blanket her senses.

Dani shifts against her, holds a little tighter. Her voice is almost detached when she speaks, as if unplugging from a reality too vicious to let all the way in.

“This is bad, you think?”

“Might not be,” Jamie says quietly. It feels strange, in the best way possible, to be held this way. Strange, not to be the only person thinking about the next step. 

“But probably is,” Dani says into the back of her neck. “Your people or mine. Or that woman. I got a bad feeling off of that woman.”

Jamie doesn’t answer. In truth, she’s never gotten such a feeling off _anyone_ \--in prison, or a target, or among her associates. No one has ever felt the way that woman did, like she’d be willing to drag any one of them to the depths of her own recklessness. Wingrave can’t know that. Wingrave can’t know what he’s done, bringing her in. 

“I’m sorry,” Dani says, her lips grazing just under the fall of Jamie’s hair. “For getting in your way. I didn’t have a choice. I know that’s--I know that’s what people say, but...”

“I know.” She doesn’t, exactly, but from what Dani said, she thinks she can guess. Family business. Whether Dani knew them for five years, or ten, or her whole life, it doesn’t matter. Family is the most dangerous path this field can take. 

Jamie might be in trouble just now, but there isn’t much she can’t talk herself out of--or leave behind, if need be. Never has been. 

Dani, on the other hand, is carrying baggage they’re both better off leaving. Baggage Jamie doesn’t need. A professional knows when to walk away.

And yet, as she dozes off, there is a safety here she never imagined, watching that irritatingly pretty smile beam up at her rooftop perch. A strange, undeniable security in the way Dani holds her, like she’s almost _angry_ Jamie managed to take a bullet first. 

Like she’s already trying to plan out their route, to make sure nothing ever touches Jamie again. 

And when she wakes the next morning, her arm throbbing, her brain sluggishly filling in the details from the night before--the dance, the body, the woman, the way Dani had kissed her like it was the next thing to breathing--she understands. It’s not the right move, maybe. Not the smart move. Definitely not professional. 

Professionals do not fall in love. Especially not with the enemy. 

She brushes the hair back from Dani’s face, watching her sleep, and thinks, _Fuck it. Nowhere to go but forward._

Wherever that happens to lead. 


End file.
